The Army Responds

Just received a two-page fact sheet. Read it after the jump

More saltpeter in the food; please

I am just going to preempt you Army guys. I just don't know what is going on at Annapolis; we just keep soiling out nest.

Can't find good Docs.

A Navy doctor who regularly acted as a chaperon for the Naval Academy men's gymnastics team is being investigated by the military on allegations that he made secret video recordings of midshipmen having sex in his Annapolis-area home, several legal and Navy sources familiar with the investigation said yesterday. While stationed at the academy, Ronan was the brigade medical officer, served on an "eating disorders and treatment team" and was an officer representative for the men's gymnastics team. Ronan also worked as a team physician for Naval Academy athletics, sources said.

A Naval Academy instructor worked as an “independent contractor” for an alleged Washington, D.C.-area madam, according to the defense lawyer for the escort service’s owner.

Elevating

Hugh Hewitt interviews Senator Richard Shelby:

HH: The story I’m going to cover, the story I’m going to cover a lot today, Senator Shelby, has to do with the troops. You’re on the Defense Appropriations, so I’ll ask you. You obviously know about blogging, and how people use the internet.

RS: Sure.

HH: And how soldiers have been blogging from the front lines, and how it’s been very useful to keeping the public informed, et cetera. Today, the Army banned soldiers from blogging, just out and out banned them. What do you make of that?

RS: Oh, I don’t believe I would have done that. I think as long as they’re not giving away positions, and stuff like that, I’ve heard from a lot of our soldiers, and they’re very upbeat. You know, they say support the troops, that we’re doing well, and I believe them. I have some friends over there right now. I had one young man who is a Marine officer, and the head of a rifle company, as we speak, and I spoke to him, and I’ve visited with his family and so forth, and he’s very upbeat. And I think a lot of these troops have been. I think that we’ll have to see what happens. But to undermine our troops is just something I wouldn’t ever want to be a part of.

HH: Now I get e-mails from a colonel in Ramadi, and a colonel in Baghdad, they’re buddies of mine. I post them on my blog, and I want to continue to do that, because it’s first-hand information. Is that an appropriate subject for Defense Appropriations to look into?

RS: Well, I don’t…I’m sure this will probably be brought up when we get into this, or we have a hearing on something that’s relevant to this. But at the end of the day, I guess the commanders issued some order for some reasons unknown to me. I think if you’ve got good morale, which I believe they send the message back, we will do it.

HH: And so I hope you do support them getting their rights back…

RS: Oh, I would. I think we ought to hear from the soldiers. We should not try to shut up our soldiers. They’re in harm’s way, they’re carrying the brunt of this, and their families, and we should support them, and we should listen to them. But the ones I’ve been listening to are upbeat.

HH: That’s why I want to keep the information flowing.

RS: I think it’s good.

HH: These blogs…yeah, they paint a very different picture from what the media does.

Guidelines and Reading the Reg...

By its terms, the new OPSEC regulation does not require approval of all communications beforehand, rather, the obligation is to consult. But as Noah's article points out, the proponent doesn't envision all communications to be monitored nor would it be practical to do so. When a regulation's proponent gives you that kind of guidance, you hang your hat on it.

But even without that, the guidelines still place the authority (or burden) on the commander. Commanders are as varied as snowflakes. Will some lean too far forward and say "no blogs"? Yes. but they could have done that before. While a commander may technically say "No Myspace" "No Ebay" and "No AKO forum posting" they are not obligated to do so under the regulation and, truth be told, commanders that ARE so lacking in common sense probably have other concerns within their units.

By analogy, on the non-deployed side, a commander has every right to revoke your pass privileges and doesn't need much of a reason to do so (if any). Do some commanders do this? Sure. Does it happen often? No. But the authority is there and hasn't proven a widespread problem.

Also, bear in mind that very little of this reg applies to online postings. This is not the Army's "Blogger Regulation." It's the OPSEC reg. This update simply attempts to incorporate into an earlier scheme new technology like blogs and other online public fora.

How does it do on that front? Well, while paragraph 2-1g(1)--the blogger provision--requires consultation before posting information to an online forum. What kind of information are we talking about? The reg defines the information that is to be protected in paragraph 1-5 as Critical Information or Sensitive Information.

Indeed, paragraph 2-1g(2)--immediately following the blogger provision of g(1) states: that they will advise personnel to ensure that sensitive and critical information is not to be disclosed. One of the duties of DA personnel is to know what their unit considers critical and sensitive information.

For example, is my posting on having recently having purchased a Nintendo Wii considered critical information? No. Could it be considered sensitive information? I can't conceive of how. My reading of the reg would be then I wouldn't be required to "consult" with my OPSEC officer prior to posting about my Nintendo Wii, or the latest Dodgers score, as I am presumed to know what sort of information is both critical and sensitive.

Accordingly, taking the author's position that it's impractical to monitor EVERY communication, the most rational reading is that it's for those grey areas where one is not sure if it's an OPSEC issue is where the obligation to consult comes in. And that's where personnel are advised that sensitive/critical info is not to be disclosed.

But suppose I'm wrong, suppose the obligation to consult applies to ALL information. That's where the common sense factor comes in. As your OPSEC officer most likely won't be doing "all OPSEC all the time," he won't be able to consult with every posting in a public forum (AKO forums? Fantasy Baseball?). Will a command thereby ban ALL such postings? Possibly. Will such a goofball decision be upheld by higher authority? Maybe.

But beyond the perennial "I'm the commander so eff off" form of persuasion, how widespread will such blanket denouncements be? Not very, in my opinion. Because for every story about details about the number of pizzas ordered at the Pentagon being considered OPSEC sensitive there are tens of thousands of similar disclosures that are not. Some ideas are too stupid even for the military to adopt. Your mileage and command may vary.

Where does that leave us? Commands with even a modicum of foresight can cure these concerns with a simple OPSEC policy memo that delineates what is considered critical and sensitive information and lay out the procedures for when "consultation" is required. Considering the infinite scope of information potentially encompassed by para 2-1g(1), I expect most will be more related to actual OPSEC matters and not pizza deliveries, and thereby leave the vast majority of milblogging intact.